Obama Speech

Well-written and delivered, in form a challenge to the other side -- "You pass this or the consequences are on your head."  So now Obama can to a degree sit back and relax, knowing that the whole thing probably will not get passed unchanged and if any change is made, he can blame the Republicans for any problems with the economy.  A win-win scenario for the Big O.  Unless the whole proposal passes and the economy is still sour, in which case Obama takes the hit.   But what is the likelihood of that?   (The Jobs bill passing, I mean, not the economy staying sour.)

As to the bill itself, I cain't kick.  I would like to see more of a carrot and a stick applied to American companies who move operations or jobs abroad, and more tax disadvantages to companies with officers paid a lot more than the rank and file.   It ain't American, and while we can't tell companies how much to pay their board and executives, we can sure as heck penalyze them when it comes to taxing. 

Also, as always, there is too much deference toward the financial industry.   American business is separate from the casino shell games played in the finance sector.

And in the meantime,  Republican presidential hopefuls will be tearing each other apart, while Obama, like Caesar at the Colisseum, sits on his throne and watches.   

I'm disappointed in Bachmann's reception.  Not that I consider her a good candidate.  It's the way the GOP faithful are bypassing her in favor of taller and louder men.  Her content is not that different from Perry's, both being on the looney side of the street.   Why is he getting the attention while she is fading?  Not fair.  I think it's because she is a little woman.

I've said before that the Republican candidates are a handsome bunch this year.    The hair dye and transplants, the botox, the spa treatments, have really paid off.  And I am sorry to say, that is what a candidate most needs:  handsomeness.   The time is past when Americans will elect a fat, bald, stooped, short, or wrinkled person to the White House.     We are all about appearances and soundbites and shortness on substance.

Perry would have appalled previous generations, whose children and grandchildren now stand enthralled.  Sad to say, he is the man of our time, which says more about us, about some of us, than about him.

Not that Perry will win against Obama if nominated.   I feel Huntsman is the best candidate to go head to head against Obama.    The loss will not reform Perry or his (or Bachmann's or Gingrich's or Palin's) supporters.  They will retire to their dens to lick their wounds and plan revenge.    As a character said in Lord of the Rings, "After a rest and a respite, the evil grows again."  

I know it's bad to characterize a significant segment of the American population as evil, but that's how I feel.   They have cleaved to the false prophets and the anti-Christ prophesied in the New Testament. 

See!   I can wax religious too.

Hit Amazon; and Find The Jester

Is a new democracy forming on the internet?  Are the hackers known as "Anonymous" and allied groups the new Sons of Liberty whose agitation helped birth a new nation 235 years ago?

Well, that remains to be seen.  But to the extent that the U.S. government and prominent politicians behave like the British in 1776 and before, it is quite possible.  Forces in repression of free speech and of access to information have sparked statements that many of us find outrageous. 

Now we learn that the government may already have indicted Julian Assange under the Espionage Act of 1917, a piece of repressive and anti-democratic legislation as infamous as the Intolerable Acts and just as much a burr under the saddle as far as exciting revolution.

As the USA more and more resembles the totalitarian nations it professes to war against, the patriots of the internet are loading up their squirrel rifles and readying for war.   "Squirrel rifles" in this day and age being computer hardware and software and communications equipment.